Jason Murphy

First Paypal, Then Chase, And Now Western Union

Sep 5, 2006 Blog General

Are phishers getting desperate?

Everyone and their email-address-enabled-Dog has received illegal attempts to siphon out your Paypal account by disguising as an “Update your account now” or “Please update your password” type of official looking messages from unknown sources. I’ve even seen them for Ebay, Bank of America, Chase, and Wells Fargo.

But today was a first. I received one for Western Union. Western Union!? I don’t have an account with WU, but I do know that there are many account holders nationwide. It just doesn’t seem to me that it would be worthwhile for phishers to phish for WU accounts. Perhaps if the accounts had a positive balance, but how many WU accounts have a positive balance? I’d imagine large corporate accounts might, but individuals usually are send money or cash out money in a one way transaction and are done. No balance necessary. Is it that worthwhile for a phisher to illegally scam access to WU accounts to sit and wait for a year or two in hopes that someone sends money to their illgotten account code?

One thing I know and I’m not giving credit to, is that Western Union is used frequently to send money to college students and family members out of the country. Perhaps this is the target of the scamsters since those accounts are usually active and sometimes do hold a positive balance. It’s just the average American who has probably already drained all the money out of their non-interest bearing WU accont.

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